


Lunar Ephemerality

by goldilocks23



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Assassination Attempt(s), Challenge Response, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hurt/Comfort, Implied Katara/Zuko (Avatar), POV Katara (Avatar), Post-Canon, Post-War, References to Depression, This is super rushed, also economics? got a D in that at university, i am bad at writing politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26987509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldilocks23/pseuds/goldilocks23
Summary: After multiple failed attempts on his life and years of self-set expectations, Fire Lord Zuko is a shell of the man he used to be. But Katara won't turn her back on those who need her.*Chapter two is TBD - marked as complete for now.*
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 166
Collections: Zutara Quote Challenge 2020





	Lunar Ephemerality

**Author's Note:**

> “I lived low enough so the moon wouldn’t waste its light on me” - Jason Molina, 'Get Out, Get Out, Get Out'
> 
> I love this quote. It reminds me of transience and the temporary lives we cycle through, changing just as often as the moon does. This story was born from that interpretation (it was also typed in a feverish, sleep-deprived haze so it could also make no sense).
> 
> Enjoy!

The year’s Autumnal Equinox Summit marks the end of the harshest monsoon season in recent memory. The city of Caldera is abuzz as nobility from all four nations congregate to celebrate the upcoming harvest with a week of delegations, bookended by two opulent feasts hosted by Fire Lord Zuko at the Royal Palace.

Katara thinks the whole thing is a bit overkill for a week that boils down to arguments over grain prices, but that is neither here nor there.

The first feast of the week is in full swing when she steps out of her assigned guest room in her ocean blue silks, the mark of her station as Ambassador of the Southern Water Tribe. They swish across the carpet as she drags her feet toward the banquet hall, exhausted from her weeks of travel. On occasions like these, Katara almost misses her long days of roaming the world by bison with Aang after the war ended. Almost.

Her visits to her clinics of the outlying Fire Nation islands had been highly successful. She found a significant decrease in hospitalizations due to malnutrition and famine. Meanwhile, her healers reported an uptick in minor injuries from workplace accidents related to trade and industry, since those who fought in the war have returned to this work. For the first time since the war ended, she truly sees the fruits of all of their labor. Her fatigue is threatening to overwhelm her, yes, but at least she would have good news to report during the Summit.

Most of the delegates have already taken their seats at one of the three opulently-adorned tables when she arrives. Finding her seat amongst the other foreign dignitaries, she suppresses a sigh when she encounters no familiar faces at the table. The woman next to her, an ambassador from the southern Earth Kingdom, introduces herself as Min. They have a slightly stilted conversation about the future talks and negotiations, but Katara quickly runs out of steam. She doesn’t help her case when she nearly nods off into her soup bowl, and Min takes a bite of her own soup to stifle her giggle.

It would be a lonely week of strained mingling without her friends to get her through it. Sokka was unable to join her on this trip, with Suki due to give birth any day now. Toph is busy with her metalbending academy. Aang is…off being the Avatar, she supposes.

There is, of course, one achingly familiar face in the room. Katara sips at her goblet of rice wine and chances a glance at the raised dais on which the Fire Lord sits at the head of the function. The sight of him nearly sends the wine down her windpipe.

Zuko sits rigidly straight, his striking features settled expertly into an expression of cool tranquility. But no amount of practiced diplomacy can hide his gaunt cheeks and sickly complexion. Even from this far away, she can see that his eyes, once bright and celestial, are dim and laden with shadows. He wears the mantle and flame of the Fire Lord proudly, but the evidence of their crushing weight is clear as day.

How much has changed in the two years since she had last seen him? They had left things between them on slightly uneven ground, but they still corresponded, and in his letters, things seemed fine. Well, for a little while. The letters had slowed down significantly about a year ago before eventually ceasing entirely, but she had chalked that up to busyness. Looking at him now, though, she worries it was something much worse than that.

Seated at his right hand, the Fire Lord’s esteemed Uncle Iroh follows Katara’s gaze and catches her eye, reading the dawning horror on her face with a grave incline of his head. Next to him, Zuko pays their exchange no mind as he stares straight through the crowd of delegates, his eyes sunken in and far away. Katara bites her lip and curses quietly, resolving to get to the bottom of this when the night’s festivities have concluded.

Iroh comes to find her later that evening after dessert has been served. “You look lovely tonight, Master Katara,” he says with a smile that does not quite reach his eyes.

They stand together on the reception’s fringes, observing Zuko conversing mechanically with two Earth Kingdom delegates across the room.

“My nephew has had a difficult year.” The grim weariness of his tone sounds foreign in his gravelly voice.

Katara flicks her gaze toward him briefly before turning her focus back to Zuko. “What happened to him?” she whispers. An invisible force violently squeezes her chest as she watches his contrived movements.

Iroh is silent for a long moment, seeming to choose his next words carefully. “Fire Lord Zuko is a good man and a…fair ruler. He has a kind disposition, atypical of a member of the royal family. There are some in the court who prefer the temperaments of my brother and niece.”

Katara absorbs that and frowns. “Well, he’s been doing the job for six years. That’s not exactly news, is it?”

Iroh shakes his head once, slowly. “No, I suppose it isn’t,” he says quietly, his brows knitting together. Katara waits for him to say more, but he remains irritatingly cryptic.

Biting back a scoff, she returns her attention to the crowded hall. Servers flit with trays of wine between clusters of guests in the finery of their respective nations. A few brave souls have formed a makeshift dance floor between the long tables, despite the lack of music. Katara indulges in another goblet of wine when the tray reaches her, mentally preparing herself for a long evening.

The Fire Nation nobles, in particular, seem eager to vie for Zuko’s attention. She attempts to catch his eye, but a small crowd has formed around the Fire Lord.

It goes on like this for some time, and she stews in her preoccupations while Iroh stands stiffly at her side. The drinks flow freely, and the guests become boisterous. The tables are pushed to the side to make room for a larger dance floor, and someone has begun plucking a tune on an erhu. Katara wants to smile, for she would never in her wildest dreams have imagined seeing stuffy Fire Nation aristocrats let their hair down like this a few years ago. But something about the whole thing makes her skin prickle uncomfortably.

The Fire Lord stands dutifully in the center of it all; the tip of his five-pronged crown the only thing visible through the crush of revelers. She would go to him when the crowd thins out, she decides. But first, she needs his uncle to tell her exactly what is going on.

She turns to face Iroh squarely, ready to pester him, only to find that his solemn expression has suddenly melted into one of abject terror. Her head whips back toward the center of the banquet hall just in time to see Zuko collapse, the handle of a pearl dagger protruding from his gut.

There is a collective gasp and a moment of shocked silence before the cacophony of noise erupts. Katara does not register her own movements until she has already pushed through the crowd surrounding the downed Fire Lord and is kneeling at his side.

Blood seeps into his formal attire and pools on the floor around him. He blinks lazily up at her. “Katara?”

“I need water!” she shouts, eyes never leaving his. Someone wordlessly sets a serving pitcher next to her while she grips the hilt of the blade in both hands and _yanks._ Zuko gasps in pain and goes completely limp as the blade slides out of his abdomen with a sickening squelch. It clatters to the floor, and she rips open his thick robes, exposing the bleeding wound where it had just missed his heart—under the burst of scar tissue on his chest.

She calls the water to her hands and presses them to him, shutting her eyes against the glow of his pale skin to concentrate on knitting the tissues back together. Relief floods her when she feels his blood begin to cooperate, faster than she had expected. The wound is clean, despite its depth, and it isn’t long before she is dropping her hands back to her side with a shuddering sigh.

Zuko does not open his eyes, but his chest’s steady rise and fall tell her that her work is done, for now. She gets one last look at his drawn features—even more alarming up close—before he is whisked away by servants.

* * *

Katara does not see him again for two days. All of the delegates are asked to stay an extra week so that the Fire Lord may fully recover before the Summit officially begins. She frowns at the attendant standing in her doorway with this news. Her healing had been thorough—there should be no need for a recovery period.

“Let me see him, please.”

The attendant raises an eyebrow. “No one but the royal healer is permitted to see Lord Zuko while he recovers his strength. Those are the orders from the Fire Lord himself.” Her tone has an air of finality, and she does not allow Katara time to respond before turning on her heel to march back the way she had come.

Katara spends the rest of the day unleashing her frustration on an unsuspecting turtle duck pond.

* * *

Iroh calls her to his parlor for tea the afternoon after the disastrous feast.

“I suspect it was one of the wine servers,” he says grimly. “There were whispers that one of them was spotted sneaking out of the hall. If I had been paying attention, I would have seen…” he trails off thoughtfully and meets Katara’s gaze. “It was lucky you were there to help this time.”

That gives her pause. “This time?”

Iroh takes a lingering sip of his tea, and at this moment, he looks much older than he is. “This was the seventh assassination attempt this year.”

Katara chokes on her tea. “This _year_?” she sputters. “But, _why?_ Zuko is—he’s—”

“As I said, Zuko is a good, just ruler.” He offers her a small smile. “Truthfully, I believe he has stretched himself too thin in trying to uphold his standards for himself. Well, you saw him.”

The image of the hollow shell that had replaced the Zuko she knew sends a shiver up her spine. “But that doesn’t explain the assassination attempts.”

He somehow sobers even more than before. “No, it doesn’t. I assume you recall what I told you about the loyalties of certain members of the court.”

She nods, wringing her hands in her lap beneath the table.

“Zuko’s latest reparations project, in particular, has not been received well domestically.”

Katara wracks her brain for a moment, then huffs, affronted. “You mean the negotiations with the Northern Water Tribe? But the Water Tribes suffered in the war more than anyone. Even those musty old Fire Nation _traditionalists”_ —she sneers the word—“should know that.”

Iroh nods enthusiastically. “I assure you, Master Katara, that I agree with you. Many in the Fire Nation do, too, regarding the _Southern_ Water Tribe. However, some believe that the Northern Water Tribe escaped the worst of the war. A smaller faction of that camp takes great offense to Zuko’s latest project, after what happened at the Siege of the North.”

Katara exhales in a forceful gust, and neither of them speaks for several minutes while she takes in this information. “So, the other six assassination attempts…” she trails off, swallowing dryly.

“Poison, mostly. Luckily, we keep excellent herbalists on staff here in the palace. Though, there was recently a narrow miss involving a crossbow and a quickly-thwarted attempt to cut his throat while he slept. He doesn’t know about that last one.”

“They’re getting bolder,” Katara whispers. Iroh drops his gaze into his tea, and the silence is suffocating.

“My nephew…he is not well, Katara. I’ve never seen him like this—not even in the weeks after he was banished. It’s as if a light has gone out inside him.” He sounds close to tears now. _I don’t know what to do_ , are the words he does not say.

Katara stands. “I want to see him.” _His attendants can bite me_ , are the words she does not say.

Iroh shoots her a tight smile, evidently having seen the unspoken statement somewhere on her face. “It is best to go at night when his guards change shifts.”

* * *

That is how she finds herself standing outside the door to the Fire Lord’s chambers, half an hour past midnight, all of her weariness forgotten. She steels herself and knocks once. Twice. There is no answer.

“Zuko? It’s Katara.” Silence.

Shrugging, she bends the sweat from her brow and freezes the lock, then opens the door anyway. She expects to find him asleep, but instead, he sits on the edge of his massive canopied bed. A single lit sconce on the wall casts him in a dim glow and glints off a small object that he twirls in his hands. The Fire Lord’s golden crown sits on his bedside table.

“Zuko,” she tries again. He does not look up.

She bites the inside of her cheek, pushing down memories of what had occurred the last time she had found herself in his room, and sidles across the floor to sit next to him. After a brief deliberation, she places a hesitant hand on his arm. He stills under her touch but otherwise does not react to her presence.

She grimaces, then drops her gaze to the object in Zuko’s hand and gasps. It’s a knife—more specifically, the knife that she had pulled from his body two days ago.

Unable to stop herself, Katara reaches for it, but he holds it out away from her. Then he startles her by speaking. “See that inscription? It says ‘ _Never give up without a fight.’”_

Schooling her expression into something that doesn’t give away her confusion, she squeezes the arm she is holding and nods, waiting for him to continue.

“There is no other blade like this in the Fire Nation. Someone tried to kill me with my own dagger, Katara. _”_ He chuckles without mirth, and it sounds painful, grating out of his throat as if it is a sound he has not made for a very long time.

“Zuko—”

He goes on as if he had not heard her, and his voice rises with each breath. “Only one of my servants would have had access to it. Do you know what that means?” He’s looking at her now with those unfamiliar dead eyes, and a sort of unhinged giggle escapes his lips. “My own servants plotted to have me killed.” He grins at her with all of his teeth, and then he is laughing hysterically—high-pitched peals of it that make his entire body quiver. The effort of it doubles him over, and the hollow sound of it makes Katara’s stomach churn.

Throwing caution to the wind, she wraps herself around him, tucking her face into his neck. His hair tickles her skin as his body jerks without restraint beneath her. He smells of stale sweat, and she has a sneaking suspicion that he has not left this spot since the end of the banquet.

They stay like that for several minutes, and by the time he is finished, he is winded, his body heaving under hers. Katara only releases him after his breathing evens out. When she looks at his face, it is blank, and the sight of him like this is torture.

His eyes are once again fixed on the blade in his hands. “‘ _Never give up without a fight,’”_ he reads again, but his voice is hoarse and devoid of humor. “How ironic,” he adds more quietly, seemingly to himself.

Katara does not like where this is going. “What do you mean? Are you saying you’re giving up?”

Instead of answering her, Zuko rises abruptly, moving—with deceptive grace, despite his current state—toward his balcony. Katara has a moment of internal panic when he takes the dagger with him, but follows after him wordlessly and stops in the doorway, eyeing him warily.

He stands at the balcony’s edge, his long hair billowing in the breeze. The moonless night is lit only by the flickering torches dispersed throughout the palace grounds and the city below.

He speaks without turning around. “I’ve always had to struggle and fight.”

She steps closer to him, preparing herself to wrestle the knife away from him. “Yes, you have. You’re a fighter.”

“I’ve fought and fought and fought. And I keep losing.” For the first time that night, his voice wavers. Then he raises the knife.

Katara surges forward. “Zuko! What are you—”

Before she can stop him, he has sliced through his hair at the nape of his neck. Katara freezes, hand outstretched, and watches in stunned silence as the inky locks float down toward a rose bush in the gardens below. With a flick of his wrist, he tosses the blade over the ledge and brushes past her to saunter back to his room.

For a moment, Katara can only stare at his retreating back as she ghosts along behind him. Zuko disappears into the large dressing room adjoined with his bedroom, and the sound of rustling fabric is the only thing puncturing the deafening quiet. He reemerges a few minutes later dressed in an all-black ensemble, and with a pang, she realizes it is the same one he had worn so many years ago when they went together to find the Southern Raiders. It is too tight for his broad shoulders now.

The Fire Lord places his dao swords with a small rucksack on the edge of the bed, and that is when Katara registers exactly what he is planning. “No. Absolutely not. You can’t just leave!”

He pauses his packing to glance up at her, his newly cropped hair falling into his eyes. “Watch me.”

Katara crosses the room to him again and takes both of his hands. They are cold, betraying her memories of the trails of fire he once left on her skin. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Your people need you, Zuko.”

“My people want me _dead_ , Katara.” He pulls his hands from her grip, and it feels like a kick to the chest.

“No, they—”

“I’m done. You can’t change my mind.”

And she knows she is fighting a losing battle because that hollow emptiness has reentered his voice, so she switches tactics. “Then let me come with you.”

Her eyes find his then, and she thinks she sees something flicker in them before he’s shaking his head. “ _Your_ people need _you_. I need to do this on my own.”

His own words from long ago echo back to her from when Aang had disappeared right before Sozin’s Comet. _Let him go. He needs time to sort it out by himself._

She sighs. “Where will you go?”

Zuko picks up his swords and pack, slinging them over his shoulder. “Earth Kingdom, I guess,” he grunts then looks at her, and he seems to go to war with himself for several seconds. That same something from before flashes in his eyes when he takes a hesitant step closer and presses his lips to her forehead. And despite herself, it warms her to her very core.

“Goodbye, Katara,” he murmurs against her skin. Then he is gone, vaulting his balcony and sprinting through the dark palace gardens below.

She does let him go, but Katara was never one to turn her back on those who need her.

* * *

From behind the pillar she has selected as her hiding place, Katara watches Zuko untie a sailing skiff from the dock. At first, she thinks he intends to sail it to a different port where he can score a larger boat for the trip across the ocean, but then he’s piling it with crates of provisions.

No one in their right mind would take a sailing skiff across the ocean, she thinks. But then she remembers that Zuko is almost certainly not in his right mind.

Katara waits until dawn breaks—when the first of the port markets open—to purchase her own supplies for the journey, telling herself it makes up for stealing the boat. Her selection is a rather pathetic little rowboat and equally dangerous to take on the open ocean, but Katara is a master waterbender.

* * *

Zuko is a speck on the horizon when she slows her bending to a more manageable pace, resolving to keep her distance now that she has caught up to him. He needs to do this on his own, sure, but someone has to make sure he is safe while he does it. She falls into a pattern of bending at breakneck speeds to catch up, then stopping to eat and rest.

She tries not to think about how much easier this would be if she had elected to take one of her father’s boats to the Fire Nation, rather than accept the steamship escort. It would have allowed her much more efficient passage for this unplanned second trip. But she has missed the spray of the ocean on her face and the exhilaration of taming the rough seas with her chi—something her father’s sleek vessels cannot quite replicate.

This all works out for the better, Katara decides. She had been meaning to pay Toph a visit at the metalbending academy, anyway, and it had been some time since she had checked in on her Earth Kingdom clinics. Perhaps she could take a more hands-on approach, this time. Healing Zuko had exercised a muscle that had suffered grossly from disuse. Lately, her duties as Ambassador have kept her far too busy for her medical endeavors.

What will the official story from the Royal Palace be, she wonders? Surely Iroh will suspect her involvement in Zuko’s disappearance, but he must know in that case that his nephew is in good hands. A shudder runs through her at the thought of how Sokka would react if he thinks she has gone missing. Hopefully, any such news would reach him _after_ he becomes a father.

Luck is on Zuko’s side, it seems, because Katara never has to swoop in to save him from a rogue wave or a nasty storm. At midmorning on the tenth day at sea, the speck of his boat meets land at the horizon line.

* * *

It does not take her long to catch up to him in the port town. She spots his dao swords and rucksack just as he ducks into a small inn. He has swapped his black clothing for plain traveler’s clothes, a thick hood concealing his scar. Katara opts to do the same, but not before waiting to make sure he stays put. She stops in a small boutique to purchase loose pants and a tunic in rich Earth Kingdom greens, then makes her own way to the inn.

She has to remind herself frequently that she is not a complete stalker; she is doing this because she cares about her friend. The assurance repeats like a mantra when she rents herself a room at the inn and watches out the window like an eagle hawk for him to emerge from one of the other doors lining the small courtyard.

At sundown, she runs out of leftovers from the journey to snack on. There is still no sign of Zuko, and at this point, that probably won’t change—at least not until morning.

Katara makes quick work of restocking her supplies at the markets before she stops in the old tavern next to the inn for dinner. She finds a secluded seat in the corner of the dimly-lit room and contents herself with people-watching. After a filling meal of imported spicy noodles—a taste she has recently acquired—she decides to stay for a glass of mead. Nursing it gingerly, she watches the tavern slowly fill with more patrons as the evening wears on. The crowd of diners wanes, replaced by those who have come only for drinking and merriment. Pipe smoke from the rowdy table next to her permeates her senses, and she relaxes more with each sip of mead.

She is wiping froth off her lip after draining the last of her drink when she sees him. The hooded figure slides into a seat at the crowded bar up front and orders two glasses of clear liquid—some kind of liquor, she realizes with mounting dread. Fighting against every instinct she has, she drops back into her seat and grimaces when he downs them both in quick succession. Then he raises his hand and orders two more.

The noodles and mead threaten to make a reappearance the longer Katara observes the scene. Her horrified expression does not go unnoticed—she is asked about her wellbeing more than once by nearby revelers. She is scarcely aware of their concerned glances as she waves them off, eyes glued to the man drinking his way into a stupor at the bar.

When Zuko orders his ninth and tenth drinks, the barkeep levels him with a perturbed look. He says something Katara can’t hear, but it is not difficult to guess his words. A short argument breaks out, but Zuko isn’t lucid enough to hold his own. She can just pick his voice out of the crowd, hopelessly slurring his words as he insists that _he’s fine_ and _just one more._ Eventually _,_ his head slumps forward onto the counter mid-sentence, and the barkeep walks away with a shake of his head.

Zuko stays that way for a while, hands dangling limply at his sides while his head rests atop the bar. His hood has slipped down, revealing his mop of raven hair—sticking up everywhere. The patrons crowding the bar give him a wide berth.

When he starts to slide off his seat, Katara realizes he has begun to fall asleep. She shoots to her feet and thinks, _screw letting him do this on his own_. But then he rises shakily from his barstool, fishing in his pocket before tossing too many coins onto the counter. She hangs back, watching him stagger toward the door. His retreating figure is met by pitying glances from the other customers.

With a steadying breath, she follows him out of the tavern, thankful that the inn is just next door. She sends a quick prayer to Tui and La that he does not decide to make any side trips—in which case, she would have no choice but to reveal herself. Keeping less of a distance than she would if he were sober, she can hear him grumbling to himself as he stumbles along the short stretch of road. The words’ _weak_ ’ and ‘ _failure_ ’ blend into a mess of incoherent drivel.

It takes every ounce of her strength not to close the distance between them, and his words from back at the palace reverberate through her mind in the form of a pounding headache. So she allows her heart to break a little from her place in the shadows as he fumbles with the key to his room—right next to hers.

* * *

It goes on like this for several days. Zuko never leaves his room, and despite the thinness of the clay separating them, Katara is greeted with utter silence from his side of it. Several times she contemplates banging on the wall if just to check that he is still alive.

Only at night does he emerge and go straight to the same place at the bar. Katara watches from her corner with rapidly-progressing despair. He drinks until the barkeep cuts him off—something that occurs earlier with each passing evening. Worse is that it does not seem to be a display of genuine concern by the barkeep. Rather, each night Zuko gets drunk faster than the last.

On the fifth day, Katara places two mangoes from the market on his doorstep. If she is going to stand by while he drinks himself into oblivion, she has to at least get him to eat something first.

He leaves the mangoes untouched. She shouldn’t be surprised, really, given the recent attempts on his life. At least he doesn’t have a death wish.

Or maybe he does, she thinks, when she sees him again that night. He is plastered after three drinks, and instead of his typical solitary brooding, he has struck up a conversation with the burly man sitting next to him. Well, he is talking _at_ the man next to him, whose less-than-welcoming demeanor becomes increasingly agitated as Zuko’s gestures become increasingly animated.

Katara is unable to pin down the exact moment when things take a dive, but it is probably when the larger man turns away to ignore Zuko’s rambling. Zuko begins waving his hands in front of his face, and when that doesn’t work, he shoves him on the shoulder. The other man stands, and Zuko, sort of, totters out of his seat. He is more than a head shorter than his adversary, but that, of course, does not seem to deter him. Hostility ripples off both men in waves that she can feel the heat of all the way across the packed tavern.

Unsurprisingly, Zuko throws the first punch, and Katara hopes she imagines the flicker of flame that erupts from his fist as he does. He stumbles forward mid-swing and misses wide. Very wide. Then the burlier man catches him by the shoulders and knees him hard in the gut.

That is when Katara reaches her breaking point. All it takes is the sound of the air _whooshing_ out of him for her to spring into action. She flies from her seat, shoving her way through the crowd. Hurdling two tables, she slides in and yanks Zuko out of the path of the other man’s flying fist. Without preamble, she throws his arm over her shoulders and drags him out of the tavern.

The Fire Lord is a heavy weight against her side. “Katara?” he rasps.

She sighs. “Hi, Zuko.”

“Katara,” he says again, and he almost sounds wistful. Then, more forcefully, “Katara. Katara, I’m—”

He yanks her to the ground with him as he falls to his knees and retches.

* * *

Zuko flops face-first onto the bed the moment Katara wrenches his door open.

“We need to get you cleaned up,” Katara murmurs as she sits gingerly by his head. A muffled grunt is her only reply.

“Zuko.”

He shifts slightly onto his side to look up at her through his lashes, and she finds it painfully endearing. Before she can stop herself, she cards her fingers through his hair, moving it off his face. He closes his eyes at her touch.

With a put upon sigh, Zuko latches onto her shoulders, using them as leverage to right himself. Ignoring the flutter in her stomach, Katara bends a stream from the tap on the far wall to clean his face and mouth with. He watches her through hooded eyelids, and their tandem breathing is the only sound that infiltrates the silence. When she is finished, she bends the water into the potted plant by the window.

Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, Katara searches his face. The scar is stark against his skin, more pallid than she has ever seen it. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” she whispers.

He averts his eyes, and she half expects him not to respond. But then he says, “I’m sorry,” and it is so quiet she thinks she might have imagined it.

She tilts his chin toward her. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

He covers her hand on his face with his, and she can feel it shaking. “It’s been two years since we last saw each other. Two _years_ , Katara. And I—I didn’t even—”

“Shh. It doesn’t matter. I just want you to be okay, Zuko.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, and the grip on her hand tightens fractionally. 

And then he crumbles. It happens so quickly that Katara barely has time to register when his head drops to the crook of her neck and a sob wracks through his body. The force of it nearly knocks her sideways, and she has to carefully extricate him from her shoulder to lower his head to her lap. He starts to speak, but he has curled himself into her like a cat, and his words are muffled against the fabric covering her stomach.

The sight of him like this shatters something deep within her. It is all she can do to find her voice and whisper, “Zuko. Zu—Zuko. I’m here. I’m right here. It’s going to be okay.”

She pets his hair, runs her fingers through it, massages the skin of his head underneath. His tears soak through her clothes, and the dampness on her skin sends a shiver through her that has nothing to do with being cold.

He shifts slightly, and she hears his words now as they run together, “—don’t deserve you, you shouldn’t waste your time on me, I’m exactly who my father said I was…”

Blinking back tears of her own, Katara takes his face in both of her hands, forcing him to turn so that he is looking up at her from her lap. “You’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong—”

But he is shaking his head like a wet polar dog as he slurs over her. “I’m a failure, too weak to lead my people—”

Katara covers his mouth with her hand, effectively cutting him off. “You need to listen to me, Zuko.” And his eyes are glazed over, but he is looking at her as if she hung the moon in the night sky. “You are none of those things. You are a wonderful, kind ruler who inherited a century’s worth of war and destruction to fix. Your people adore you. _I_ adore you.”

“But my people keep trying to kill me,” she thinks he mumbles beneath her hand, and his hot breath dampens the skin of her palm.

Katara fights the urge to shake him. “Yourpeople are not the governors and lords who profited from the war or the court traditionalists who wish to see you fail. Your people are thriving under your leadership. They’re rejoicing their Fire Lord for bringing their soldiers home and putting food in their bellies. They’re—” She stops herself because he is jerking his head back and forth again as his chest heaves spasmodically. In this intoxicated state, he is inconsolable, she realizes.

Releasing a gusty sigh, Katara shifts to lie back on the pillows. She nudges him gently to follow her lead, and he crawls over to settle so that he rests facing her, tucking her head under his chin. “You’re a good man, Zuko,” she breathes against his neck, and she winces at the scent of alcohol that drapes around him like fog.

They stay like that for several minutes while she waits for his breathing to become less erratic. Her thumbs rub soothing circles into his hip bone, and she sighs softly as his fingers trail through her long hair.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says again. He presses a kiss to her hairline. Then he is moving, kissing down her temple, across her cheeks, her nose. She is frozen, the moment intermingling strangely with her memories of his lips on her skin from a lifetime ago. “I’m sorry, Katara,” he mumbles against the corner of her mouth, and it sends a bolt of electricity through her.

His breathing evens out, giving way to soft snores against her lips.

* * *

Zuko is awake, sitting up in the bed next to her when she opens her eyes. He had bathed at some point while she was sleeping, and his features are drawn, but he looks refreshed. She reaches for his hand, and he jerks under her touch but doesn’t quite pull away.

“Hi,” she says, blinking away the last dregs of sleep.

He is staring straight ahead, a thoughtful look on his face and the sight of anything but that frightening blank expression fills her to the brim with something unnameable.

“Was it you who left the mangoes outside my door?” He looks at her, then, and she can’t decide if the glint in his eyes is merely a reflection of the morning sun streaming in through the window.

Katara nods and squeezes his hand.

“Do you have any more of them?”

That unnameable thing, she realizes, is hope. “No, but I’d be happy to get some more.” Then, hesitantly, “Do you want to come with me?”

In answer, he stands, and Katara releases the breath she had not realized she was holding.

* * *

Despite the bright, cloudless sky, the air is crisp when they walk the winding path from the inn to the market. The first signs of autumn paint the trees that line the path in brilliant reds and golds. After weeks spent boiling in the unrelenting heat of a late Fire Nation summer, Katara welcomes the chill seeping into her new clothes. Next to her, Zuko’s cheeks are flushed from the cold, and she allows herself a soft smile because he looks just a little more alive.

His voice breaks the silence halfway through their walk, crepitating like the leaves beneath their feet. “Why did you follow me here?”

Katara sucks in a breath, running through all of the reasons in her head. Of course, she had expected the question, but she is learning quickly that she must tread lightly with him in this state. She could mention her clinics, Toph’s metalbending academy, or that she is out of practice with her healing; that she had planned to travel to the Earth Kingdom anyway, and that Zuko had given her the perfect excuse.

She lands on the truth. “Because I care about you, Zuko.” And it stings a bit that he could not draw that conclusion himself, but she thinks this is a start. More silence follows her words, and the market is in sight up ahead.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he mumbles, and the sting amplifies, but he continues doggedly. “You should be participating in the delegations. They need your experience and input.”

His words hang heavily in the air between them, and she can hear that hollowness creeping back in, threatening to swallow him whole.

Katara turns to look at him, and though he refuses to meet her gaze, she does not hesitate when she speaks her next words. “I go wherever I’m needed most.”

He is silent after that, but he does not flinch away when she laces her fingers through his.

The market is bustling when they reach the produce stalls. Katara picks out two mangoes, and the merchant offers her a warm smile. “It’s lucky you got here early. My Fire Nation imports are usually sold out by midday.”

She returns the grin, and it widens as she watches Zuko scan the rest of the display—chock full of goods from his country—with interest. She catches his eye and gestures hopefully toward a small wooden bench that faces out toward the docks. He nods and follows her out of the throng of busy shoppers.

They sit and eat their fruit in companionable silence, watching a group of port workers begin the docking process for a large steamship. In Katara’s peripherals, Zuko pulls his hood a little higher.

The workers have started loading massive crates labeled ‘EK Exports’ onto the ship when she scoots a little closer to him. “This is all because of you, Zuko. Trade between nations is flourishing more than it ever has since you scaled back the Fire Nation’s protectionism policies.”

He shrugs. “Look where that’s gotten me.” But in his eyes, she sees that same flickering something that she had seen the night he left her in his bedroom.

She tries again. “You know, I was really looking forward to giving the report on my Fire Nation clinics at the Summit. They’re progressing—”

“I can’t do this right now, Katara.” But there is something in his voice that wasn’t there before, and the tiny flickering light is still there in his eyes when they briefly meet hers.

The hope flares and kindles. Maybe it isn’t right now, perhaps it isn’t any time soon, but she will pull him back from this precipice.

* * *

They take a basket of meats and fruits from the market back to the inn that evening. Zuko does not speak unless spoken to, does not initiate contact—but bit by bit, he thaws under Katara’s soft words and touch. He does not go to the tavern that night but sits with Katara on the lumpy bed in his dark room at the inn.

She tells him about all that he had missed since his letters stopped; her new healing center at the South Pole, Gran Gran’s improving health, Suki’s pregnancy—she manages to pull a genuinely bewildered response from him at that last one. But he mostly just listens, nodding and commenting when appropriate, like the Fire Lord he is. A few times, he even graces her with a small smile.

Neither of them brings up his actions from the night before.

The moon is high in the sky when Katara decides it is time to head back to her room. She stands and stretches, sighing contentedly when the joints in her back pop satisfactorily. Zuko watches her from his perch on the edge of the bed. She scrutinizes him for a moment, taking in his relaxed posture and unguarded expression, before hesitantly stepping between his legs.

Closing her eyes against his potential reaction, she slides her arms around his neck and presses her face against the silk of his hair. He freezes, then slowly brings his arms up to wrap them around her waist, pulling her closer. She can feel the barest trace of warmth in his touch through the fabric of her tunic, and as that feeling spreads down to the tips of her toes, it gives her the courage to say her next words.

“I know that you’re not ready to go back, now…or maybe ever. And you should take as much time as you need. But I want you to know that I’m here for you.” She pulls back to look into his face, and she has to bite back a tiny sob seeing a hint of the molten gold of _her Zuko_ , staring back at her. “In whatever capacity you need me to be.”

His grip around her tightens, and he searches her face for a moment before he swallows, pressing his forehead gently to hers. “Will you stay?”

She smiles, admiring the way his face seems to shine in the moonlight streaming through the window.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> There might be another chapter of this, if anyone is interested!
> 
> Update: Still TBD on that second chapter so I have marked this as complete for now.


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